Friends Like Us

by Siân O'Gorman

  Oh God. She almost said yes.

  ‘I have a boyfriend,’ she said, while watching his smile dissolve into confusion.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she mumbled. ‘Thanks for the tea.’ Grabbing her bag and coat, she stepped once again into the torrential rain.

  33

  Steph

  Balancing on the edge of a chair in Rachel’s head teacher’s office, nausea and anxiety having claimed permanent residence in her stomach, Steph looked warily at the formidable woman in front of her.

  Earlier in the day, she had received the call asking her to come into discuss Rachel. Rachel? She had always done so well in school. Steph had never had to discuss her behaviour. Her blood had run cold.

  ‘Mrs Fitzpatrick…’ Mrs Doyle said.

  ‘Call me Steph, please.’ She was desperately trying to make the situation less formal and more manageable somehow.

  ‘I wonder…’ said the head teacher, ‘if anything is going on at home.’

  ‘At home?’

  ‘Yes, at home.’ Mrs Doyle gazed steadily back.

  ‘Why… what’s going on? Is Rachel in trouble?’

  ‘No, not trouble as such…’ Mrs Doyle stopped for a moment. ‘But there has been a change in her behaviour which has caused her teachers to mention it to me. And I have spoken to Rachel myself and thought it wise to talk to you. I’m sorry your husband wasn’t available.’

  ‘Work, you know,’ said Steph. ‘But when you say change in behaviour… what do you mean?’

  ‘There has been a sharp decrease in Rachel’s performance levels. Her academic work has suffered. And of course, all teenagers have problems, hormonal, emotional, but this is something more… she seems… angry.’

  ‘Angry?’ And there was I thinking that everything could be contained within our four walls. How stupid of me, she thought.

  ‘Yes. Is she angry at home?’

  ‘Sometimes, yes,’ Steph admitted. ‘But it’s normal, isn’t it, for children, teenagers, to be angry with the world, isn’t it?’ But it’s not normal for fathers to be sleeping with their neighbours and their mothers to bury their heads in the sand.

  ‘She was embroiled in a fight, Steph. A few weeks ago. A physical, unpleasant fight. Hair pulling, scratching. With another girl. Not something I would have thought Rachel would ever have been involved in, would you agree?’

  ‘Yes… but…’

  ‘Did she tell you about it?’

  ‘No…’ she said. She obviously hadn’t got that far in the diary. ‘No, I didn’t know.’

  ‘Do you know why this might have happened?’

  ‘Yes, I think so…’ Steph felt her throat catch. Jesus, pull yourself together, don’t cry.

  Steph couldn’t tell Mrs Doyle the truth. She couldn’t say that Rachel knew that her parents’ relationship was not just on the rocks, but that it had sunk.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Doyle. ‘She has spoken to me. We talked at length yesterday.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. One thing she told me was that things aren’t good at home.’

  ‘Right,’ said Steph, miserably.

  ‘She says you and your husband don’t speak to each other.’

  ‘We do… we…’ Steph stopped. ‘We do speak.’ She looked helplessly at Mrs Doyle who eyeballed her calmly. Rachel was right, though, she and Rick didn’t speak. They exchanged words, they argued, but they didn’t speak.

  ‘She said, and I quote, “it is horrible at home”.’ Mrs Doyle tried to smile kindly. ‘I am only saying what she has told me, but I think what we can glean, very clearly, is that it has made Rachel unhappy. Very unhappy, it seems, and has left her angry and confused. Now, I must assure you, Steph, that you have my confidence. I am here to help Rachel… and you, perhaps?’

  ‘No,’ Steph suddenly admitted. ‘We don’t speak. We haven’t spoken in years.’ Tears filled her eyes. Mrs Doyle nodded gently and allowed her to talk. Steph wiped her eyes with her hand. ‘It’s a horrible atmosphere. Our home is not a happy one. I’m unhappy, Rick’s unhappy, I suppose. We should have separated years ago, but something… I just couldn’t… I didn’t… I’ve been trying to sort things out and I thought I was, but my mother…’

  ‘I am sure you are trying, but Rachel is caught in the middle of it all,’ said Mrs Doyle. ‘And I believe it is our responsibility here at the Abbey to help our girls as much as we can. We do not wish to interfere in the private lives of parents, but when events are having such a blatant effect on welfare, then, I believe we must step in. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Yes, of course…’

  ‘You see,’ continued Mrs Doyle, ‘there is something else… the very reason for the fight Rachel was embroiled in. Are you aware what gossip can do to a young girl’s self-esteem, Steph?’

  Poor Rachel, how humiliating and devastating it must have been for her. With she and Aoife both in the school, of course people knew about Rick and Miriam. And there she was thinking that it was her secret.

  ‘I’ll talk to her today.’

  Mrs Doyle nodded, not unsympathetically. ‘I think that might be a good idea. Girls need leadership, guidance. They cannot be expected to make sense of the adult world all on their own. No one expects you to live a blameless life, but maybe there could be an increase in better communication?’

  Steph nodded, fervently. ‘Yes, absolutely… And there’s another thing,’ she said. ‘Her grandmother, my mother, is seriously ill. Cancer. She and Rachel have always been close. It’s not clear if she’s going to be okay.’ She stopped talking for a moment, just to try and steady her voice. ‘I’m not sure if she’ll… make it.’ Steph wiped her eyes with her hands just as Mrs Doyle pushed over a box of tissues. ‘And Rachel, you see, Rachel must be so worried.’

  ‘And so are you.’

  ‘I am… but I don’t think I’ve helped Rachel at all. Things have been so bad between us. And now things, life, has got worse, just when I thought I might be able to get things under control. My mother and father always looked after Rachel, fussed over her. She loves them so much.’

  ‘And she loves you.’

  Steph couldn’t speak. If she tried, she knew she would break down completely. She was consumed with the thought of having let Rachel down and not being there for her. No wonder Rachel had been so angry. Steph just hadn’t been able to get it together. Sixteen years of living with a man like Rick meant that it was hard to change, to get the strength together to sort it out, even for the sake of the person Steph loved most in the world.

  ‘Thank you for telling me all this, Mrs Doyle,’ she said, gathering herself. ‘And thank you for looking after Rachel and caring about her.’

  Mrs Doyle nodded. ‘She’s a lovely girl.’

  Steph nodded. ‘I know,’ she whispered.

  ‘I have a teenage daughter. I know what it is like when you have tried to protect them from the truth. It doesn’t work. If you would like my advice, which you may not want,’ she said, smiling kindly, ‘then talk to her. Adults have complicated lives. She can’t come up with answers on her own. She can’t make this right. And nor should she have to.’

  ‘Yes of course, thank you.’ Steph’s head was buzzing. She couldn’t quite think straight. ‘Where’s Rachel now?’

  Mrs Doyle smiled kindly. ‘She’s in English at the moment. Listen, I’ll have a word with her before she goes home tonight and tell her I’ve talked to you. It might help.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Steph stood up and the two women shook hands.

  ‘I’m here,’ said Mrs Doyle. ‘The school is here, for so many different reasons. Let me know if I can help again. Anytime.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Steph left the office choked with tears and once she was safely in the car, she allowed herself to sob. She texted Rachel.

  I love you. I am so sorry. Can we talk tonight? xxxx

  She phoned Rick, knowing that this wasn’t going to be as easy as firing off a text.

  ‘Busy?’ she said.

  ‘Y
es,’ he answered.

  She ignored him. She was fed up with his controlling her, his games. This was more important than either of them. This was about their daughter. ‘You need to listen to me,’ she said. ‘Rachel’s unhappy,’ she said. ‘And it’s our fault. She knows, Rick. She knows.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, finally. There was regret in his voice. He loved Rachel. What father wouldn’t? ‘She shouted at me the other night, when you were out…’

  ‘When you…’ She meant when he had been drinking and pushed her.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, not giving anything away. Steph couldn’t gauge how he felt about being reminded about that.

  And you took it out on me, she said to herself.

  There was silence. ‘This is not my fault, Rick, this part of it, anyway.’

  Silence again.

  ‘You need to take responsibility for your actions.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You need to move out.’

  There, she had said it. The first move in the complicated game of divorce.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I will.’

  ‘And we will divorce, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, neutrally.

  ‘And will you agree to mediation?’ she said. ‘I don’t fancy trying to divorce a lawyer.’ She said it half-jokingly but didn’t know what his answer would be. But she had to find a way where she would regain some control of this process, the separation. She didn’t want abuse and accusations from either side being hurled in the unpretty face of divorce.

  ‘Mediation,’ he agreed.

  And that was it. The end of her marriage. He was moving out.

  For a moment she didn’t speak. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ She breathed out. This was it, this was her new beginning.

  As she slipped her phone back into her bag, it rang. Rachel?

  It was Mr Rose, her mother’s consultant.

  34

  Eilis

  Her next patient on the health conveyor belt was an old man, looking, as people do in hospital, vulnerable and scared.

  ‘Mr McEntee. I’m Eilis McCarthy.’

  He looked at her, this man now felled by age. ‘Tom.’

  She looked at the notes. ‘Right, Tom.’

  ‘Or Macca.’ He half-smiled. ‘I answer to both.’ She’d seen this before. Grown men, scared for their lives, hiding it with their usual banter.

  ‘I’ll call you Tom, if that’s okay.’

  ‘Fine by me.’ His voice was croaky.

  ‘So, Tom,’ she said, ‘what’s the problem?’

  ‘Sick, ill… on the way out. And that suits me grand.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. Could you sit up a little bit, Tom?’

  He shook his head. ‘Me back,’ he said. ‘It’s gone. Can’t move.’

  ‘Well, we’ll help you.’ Eilis called over Becca to help lift him up. She watched as Becca shuffled over to them, looking like she had all the time in the world.

  ‘You know…’ he croaked as they lifted him up to sitting, ‘I used to scamper up ladders for a living? Scamper! Like a little monkey I was.’

  ‘In the circus were you, Tommo?’ asked Becca.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘The parks. The council, you know. In the cold every day of my life. Loved it. Used to complain about it at the time but what I wouldn’t give…’

  ‘We’ll have you up in no time, won’t we Becca?’ said Eilis.

  ‘Don’t put yourself out, love,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t bother if I was you.’

  ‘But we want to bother, Tom,’ she said. ‘That’s what we’re here for. To bother.’

  His watery grey eyes looked defeated.

  ‘Do you have anyone at home, Tom? Anyone to look after you?’

  ‘No. Just me. Never had no one.’

  ‘Never married, Tom, handsome man like you?’

  He almost chuckled. ‘Never made it that far. The company might have been nice,’ he said. ‘But…’

  ‘You were too busy scampering up ladders.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he was smiling now. ‘I was.’

  They eyed each other, taking the other in. Eilis professional and competent and wearing expensive Italian loafers. His feet were bare, sticking out from his dignity-relieving hospital gown. She felt as she always did that sense of life not ever being fair. Even the ill and the well, it wasn’t fair that some people were sick and some were not. She was aware how ridiculous that was, especially for a doctor. She thought of Charlie and what he had said about her giving it up. Could she? What would she do?

  When Tom had been given pain relief and she had asked Becca to make him a cup of tea, she went to see the head of the department, Mohit Kapil. The plan was to discharge Tom that afternoon. They needed the bed, he said. They weren’t an old folks’ home.

  ‘We can’t send him home. He has no one to look after him.’

  ‘We have no choice.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not your decision, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But he’s my patient.’ Eilis looked steadily at him. ‘Surely, that stands for something.’

  ‘Not when there are people who we can save, if only they are given a bed.’

  ‘You are giving up…’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it that. But in modern medicine, difficult decisions have to be made. This is not one of them.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve done our best. I think it’s time for him to go home.’

  ‘But his flat is damp, he told me. He has no money. Here, at least, he is warm and comfortable. We have clean sheets, television, other people...’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mohit. ‘There is an economic imperative. Not my fault. Not yours. It’s the system.’

  ‘The system! Jesus!’ It was all so futile, they could only ever do so much and it never felt as though it was enough.

  ‘I want you to sign the discharge today. We’ll just make sure he’s on the home-care list.’ There was nothing more she could do, except accept the situation, however inadequate it was.

  Later… she went to find him. ‘Good news, you’re going home.’ She was trying to sound positive.

  He looked terrified.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ she spoke more in hope than confidence. ‘You’ve improved. And we’re always here if it doesn’t work out.’

  The man needed rest and care. He was old. He’d worked for the council all his life and now we needed him to leave the hospital as quickly as possible so he didn’t take up too much space. She felt the frustration rising in her.

  She got home at nine o’clock the following morning, exhausted and thinking about climbing into bed and staying there for a week but she was stopped by a yellow post-it stuck on the mirror above the mantelpiece.

  Eilis,

  I’m so sorry for everything.

  I love you,

  Rob

  What the…? What on earth was happening? What did he mean? Sorry for what? There had been no real change in their relationship. Was he sorry for not going to Greece, he didn’t speak to her very much but he’d been like that for months now? What exactly was he sorry for? As she dialled his number, breath short, chest tight.

  And then he answered.

  ‘Eilis?’

  ‘Rob?’ Silence. ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, sounding strange and quiet.

  ‘Are you all right? Just tell me if you’re all right?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘So, what’s going on?’ He was ending them, she knew it. It was over.

  ‘I just need some time alone,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry Eilis but please don’t call me again. I just need to get my head together.’

  ‘What? Just tell me what’s going on? Are you leaving me?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sounded so anguished, she had never heard him like that, cool, calm Rob. And then she realized he had put the phone down. She called him again but the number wouldn’t connect. It kept dropping. She checked the number and called again. Then she dialled it manually, pressing each number in
turn. She waited. It dropped again. Had he blocked her number?

  She felt rage. She needed to talk to him IMMEDIATELY to tell him what a complete inconsiderate tool he was. And always, if she was totally honest, had been. A post-it indeed.

  She thought about phoning a friend of his, someone from the department. What were the names of the people he was going out with lately? Michael someone? Wasn’t there a Freddie? She rang his office. It was after eight. His secretary’s voice said that they were closed and Eilis was encouraged to leave a message. She declined.

  But there was nothing. She tried calling again but the phone wouldn’t connect. The next day, she didn’t go home but instead drove to one of her favourite places, Mount Usher Gardens. It was an old garden full of the trees and plants and birds and a stream and places for picnics. She often went there on her own to just walk around and clear her head after long shifts at the hospital. It was somewhere that always managed to bring her down to earth again, to make her feel almost normal.

  She bought a cup of tea when she arrived and found her favourite spot, a bench in a little clearing of ash trees.

  Her peace and contemplation was soon shattered by a group of people, all chatting and being very loud. Sitting up to get a better view and squinting to try and pull them into focus, she thought she recognized one of two of them. They were striking because they were all dressed so colourfully, bright red jumpers, yellow trousers on one of the men, a mauve cardigan, a stripy sun hat and one man at the front in a red and blue checked shirt. Charlie.

  Her heart leaped, salmon-like, in her chest. Oh, but she had run away Cinderella-like last time. Would he hate her too? She didn’t know what to do.

  He was with the gardening group, she realized now. Yes, there was Pauline and Rosemary. And there was George. They were wending their way along the path, notebooks in hands and all talking excitedly as if they had just returned from a school trip or had been reassured as to the existence of Father Christmas